Backup Men

9

IT WAS collect, of course. That’s the only kind of longdistance call I ever get at three o’clock in the morning and often as not it’s from someone I haven’t seen in fifteen years and haven’t thought of in ten. Usually, they just want to talk because they’re about three-fourths of the way through a bottle of bourbon and the wife has gone to bed and it seems like a damned good idea to call up old McCorkle and find out how the hell he is.

But sometimes they’ve run into a little trouble and need fifty dollars to get out of jail or a hundred to get to the next town where the new job is waiting and they can’t think of anybody else in the whole world who’ll lend it to them except me and please, for Christ’s sake, would I mind wiring it?

So I usually send the money because it’s as cheap a way as I can think of to make sure that they don’t call anymore. After I hang up I sometimes lie there in bed and try to think of whom I could call at three in the morning to send me fifty or a hundred. It’s not a long list.

This time it was Padillo and he was calling from New York and after I told the operator that I’d accept the call, I said, “How much do you need?”

“I’ve got a little trouble.”

“It’s not so little if you’re calling at three in the morning.”

“They made a try about two hours ago.”

“Where?”

“In Delaware,” Padillo said. “I was driving them up.”

“From Baltimore?”

“Right.”

“Was it Kragstein and Gitner?”

“It must have been, but it was too dark to tell.”

“What happened?”

“They pulled up alongside and tried.”

“Tried?”

“I caught on in time and they went off the road.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“You mean them or us?”

“Us,” I said. “You.”

“No. Kassim was barely ruffled.”

“What about the other guy, his adviser?”

“Scales? He’s another cucumber.”

“So what do you need?”

“Another hand.”

“Who?”

“Do you remember one of our customers called William Plomondon?”

“I see his trucks around town. Plomondon the Plumber. He’s a pretty big contractor.”

“Call him for me first thing tomorrow.”

“What’ll I tell him, that the sink’s stopped up?”

“Invite him to lunch. He won’t take it over the phone. Tell him that I can use him for three days in New York and that there’ll be a bonus.”

“He’ll know what I’m talking about?”

I could hear Padillo’s rare sigh. It wasn’t one of impatience. It was one of weariness that may have contained a touch of regret. “He’ll know.”

“Where’ll I tell him to call you?”

“No calls,” Padillo said. “I’m using a phone booth.”

“What’s the address?”

It was on Avenue A in Manhattan and I remembered the neighborhood. It would never win any prizes in the annual Spring paint-up, fix-up campaign.

“You’re right downtown,” I said. “When do you want him to show?”

“By seven o’clock tonight.”

“And you really need him?”

“I really need him.”

“What happened to Wanda?”

“That’s why I need him. She’ll be gone for three days and after that I’ll have to move Kassim and Scales again.”

“Any idea where?”

“West, I think,” he said. “But where west I don’t know.”

“Was Wanda with you when Gitner and Kragstein made their try?”

“No. She left as soon as she got the news.”

“What news?”

“Kassim’s older brother.”

“What about him?”

“He died six hours ago. The kid is now king.”

“Give him my congratulations,” I said.

“I’ll do that,” Padillo said and hung up.

Padillo had been gone for nearly two days when he called me at three Friday morning. I’d last seen him at the Hay-Adams, still negotiating his uneasy truce with Wanda Gothar. Since then I’d kept fairly busy at the none too arduous tasks that compose saloonkeeping. If it had been hard work, I’d have gone into something else. But I’d signed some purchase orders; hired a new pastry chef who claimed to make a remarkable kirsch torte; turned down the Muzak salesman for the ninth time; approved a recommendation by Herr Horst to buy some new uniforms for the waiters and busboys, and had a fairly friendly, explorative talk with the business agent for Local 781 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union (AFL-CIO) who thought I should be paying the help a little more money. I told him that I thought they should be working a little harder, so we left it at that for the time being and had a drink and talked about the kind of restaurant he planned to open once he got out of what he described as the “labor game.”

After Padillo called I’d made the late luncheon date with William Plomondon and I was sitting at the bar waiting for him when Karl moved down to my end and started rearranging some glasses that didn’t much need it.

“What’s new?” I said.

“The duchess was in the bag again,” he said.

“That’s not new.”

“I thought you’d like to know.”

She wasn’t really a duchess. She was the wife of a cabinet member with whom I’d finally had to have a little chat because the Mrs. insisted on having lunch at our place at least twice a week, which was all right, except that she usually drank it and needed help to make it out the front door. We’d come to an arrangement so that whenever she showed up Herr Horst would call a certain number in the cabinet member’s office and a departmental limousine would be dispatched to take her home or on to her next appointment. She drank straight double vodkas and Padillo predicted that she would wake up in a drying-out place within three months. I gave her six and Karl, less tolerant or perhaps more realistic, claimed that she had only a few weeks left.

“How big was her party?” I said.

“Five other broads. Nobody important. The duchess is supposed to show at the Spanish Embassy reception tonight, but I don’t think she’ll make it. If she does, she’ll probably jump in the goldfish pool again.”

Karl had worked for Padillo and me in Bonn where he’d been bored by both the Bundestag and whatever passed for social life in that village on the Rhine. Although I found it difficult to decide which of the capital cities was duller, Karl thought that Washington glittered and regarded Congress as an endless drama. He was on a first-name basis with at least fifty Representatives and a dozen Senators, knew how the rest of them voted on every issue, was a primary source of backstairs gossip for half of the town’s society reporters, and was occasionally consulted by a couple of syndicated columnists who also put great faith in the philosophical pronuncia-mentos of New York cabdrivers. In addition, Karl was also the best bartender in town. Padillo had seen to that.

“When’s Mike coming back?” he said.

“In a couple of days.”

“Where is he?”

“Out of town.”

“I was hoping I could talk to you guys about something.”

I sighed and turned from my vigil at the door. Plomondon could find me easily enough when he arrived. I had a more important problem. My bartender wanted to borrow some money.

“What barn did you find it in?” I said.

“You’ll never believe it.”

“That’ll make it easier to say no.”

“Listen,” Karl said and patted a stray lock of long blond hair back into place. I think he may have pioneered the trend because he’d worn it long for more than a dozen years. “It’s a Dues.”

“You can’t afford a Duesenberg,” I said. “Nobody can.”

“It’s a 1934 blown SJ with a Rollston body.”

“What kind of shape is it in?” I said, getting interested in spite of myself.

“Cherry.”

In addition to being the town tattle, Karl was also a classic car buff. He’d owned a series of them beginning with a 1939 Lincoln Continental that I’d found for him in Copenhagen. He’d keep one awhile and then sell it for a respectable profit in what seemed to be a steadily rising market. I didn’t share his passion, but after all, they’d only made 500 of the things, and he probably wanted this one so much that it hurt.

“How much?” I said.

Karl busied himself with the glasses again. “Twenty-five,” he said in a voice so low that it was hard to decide whether it was a whisper or a whimper.

“Jesus,” I said.

“Look,” he said, whipping out a ballpoint pen and using a paper napkin to figure on. “I know where I can get fifteen tomorrow for the Hispano-Suiza.” That’s what he was then driving. “I got five saved so really all I need is another five.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Twenty-five thousand dollars for a car that’s nearly forty years old.”

“It’ll be worth thirty-five easy in less’n five years.”

“It’s in good shape?” I said, feeling myself weakening and hating it.

“Perfect.”

“I’ll talk to Padillo when he gets back.”

“This guy can’t hold it forever.”

“When Mike gets back.”

“I’ll call the guy and tell him I’ll take it.”

“Look, I didn’t say—”

“I think your luncheon date’s here,” Karl said.

I turned and watched Plomondon the Plumber move across the room toward the bar. He was a small, compact man, not quite forty and not over five-five who walked on the balls of his feet and swung his arms a little more than necessary, something like a British soldier who’s never off parade. He had brown curly hair that was cut close to his head, which may have been a little too big for his body, but which he carried at a proud angle with chin out and shoulders back.

He nodded at me as he came and when he was close enough he stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Bill Plomondon.”

I shook his hand, which was dry and hard and also too large for the rest of him, and said that I was glad to see him and asked whether he would prefer to have lunch in a private room.

“I like things out in the open.”

I nodded and turned to survey the dining room. It was a little past two because Plomondon had said he couldn’t make it any earlier so there were several tables available. I caught Herr Horst’s eye and he nodded and glided across the room toward us.

“Number eighteen, I think, Herr Horst,” I said.

“Of course, Herr McCorkle,” he said with the stiff formality that we’d both maintained in private as well as public for nearly fifteen years.

We could have squeezed another ten tables into the dining room and perhaps no one would have complained, but a lot of our customers ate with us because we kept the tables far enough apart so that they could describe their latest triumphs and disasters in a normal conversational tone without fear of being overheard.

When we were seated, Plomondon waved away the menu. “I’d like a small steak rare and a salad. If you’re having a drink, I’ll take a martini any way that they like to make it.”

To celebrate this no-nonsense approach I ordered the same thing and when the drinks came, he took a sip, put it down, folded his arms on the table, leaned forward and stared at me with brown eyes that didn’t seem overly impressed with what the world had to offer.

“How’s Mike?” he said.

“All right.”

Plomondon shook his head. “If he was all right, he wouldn’t have you inviting me for lunch.”

“He said he can use you in New York for three days and that there’d be a bonus.”

Plomondon didn’t nod or frown or do anything other than blink at me twice with those seen-it-all eyes of his. “No,” he said. “Tell him that. No.”

“He said he needed you by seven tonight.”

“It’s still no.”

“All right,” I said.

Plomondon moved his head to look first right and then left and then over his shoulder. He had a small face for the size of his head. There was a great deal of forehead and chin and they seemed to have shoved his mouth, nose and eyes together into a neat, compact area that could be easily attended to. His nose tilted up at its end and his mouth didn’t have much upper lip which made him look as if he pouted a lot, although I don’t think he really did. When he was satisfied that nobody was eavesdropping, he leaned forward again and said, “You don’t talk about it a lot, do you?”

“About what?”

“About Padillo and what he does.”

“He runs a saloon,” I said.

“Good. I run a plumbing company. A big one.”

“I’ve seen your trucks.”

“I also take on the odd job now and then. Not often. Just now and then. So you see I’ve got my lines out.”

After that he didn’t say anything for a while. We sat there sipping our drinks until the steaks came. Plomondon cut his up all at once into precise one-inch cubes which he proceeded to eat in a methodical manner, giving each cube twenty-five chews. I became so fascinated I counted. When he was through with the steak, he polished off the salad, cutting it up into manageable squares with knife and fork. I didn’t bother to count how many times he chewed his lettuce.

Herr Horst was keeping an eye on us and when we were through eating, the coffee was served promptly. Mac’s Place is the only restaurant in the world where I get decent service. In others I seem to turn invisible. But Plomondon seemed no more impressed by the service than he had been by the food. I felt that he would have been just as happy eating fried cat as long as it came in one-inch cubes.

When he’d finished his first cup of coffee he again leaned forward, signaling that he had something important to say. First, he nodded his head a couplc of times. “Nice lunch,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I eat here quite a bit.”

“I know.”

“To eat here regular you’ve either got to have a lot of money or a loose expense account.”

“We planned it that way.”

“Yeah. Well, when I started out in the plumbing business right after Korea I couldn’t afford to eat in places like this. Sometimes I couldn’t even afford a White Tower.”

“A lot of people had to struggle at first.”

“You didn’t,” he said and before I could say how did he know, he went on. “I can look at a guy and tell whether he’s been hard up against it. You think I’m kidding? I can look at you and tell that you’re the kind of a guy who’d say screw it if you had to eat in a White Tower and then go and do something else. Maybe that’s why you went into the restaurant business, so you’d never have to eat in a White Tower.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but I’ve eaten in them.”

“But not because you had to.”

“It was my own choice.”

“That’s what I thought. When I first started out in the plumbing business I got a little impatient too. I wanted it big right away, but it doesn’t work like that unless you got the capital. So I put some lines out and started taking on the odd job now and then. I did pretty much what Padillo once did except that I didn’t stick to government work exclusively, if you know what I mean.”

I told him that I did and he nodded and said, “I’m still not saying anything, not anything important anyhow, but those odd jobs provided the expansion capital I needed. Now I don’t really need the outside work, but that’s not why I’m saying no to Padillo.”

“Why then?”

“He and I don’t owe each other anything. We never worked together. But I know about him and he knows about me and I always figured if I really needed somebody, I maybe could call him in. Maybe. I guess he figured the same way.”

“I guess he did.”

“Well, like I said, I’ve still got my lines out and I think I know what Padillo’s on and who he’s up against and I don’t want any part of it. No hard feelings, understand?”

“I think so.”

“Amos Gitner,” he said quickly and watched my face closely for its reaction. There must have been some because he smiled for the first time. “I was pretty certain,” he said. “Now I’m sure.”

“That it’s Gitner?”

Plomondon shook his head. “That I don’t want any part of it.”

He rose then and held out his hand and said, “Tell Padillo I’m sorry we couldn’t do business.” I shook his hand and he turned away, but turned back and leaned on the table, his large head thrust toward me. “Maybe you’d better tell him the real reason, too,” he said.

“All right.”

“Tell him,” he said slowly, “that I’m not good enough anymore.” He paused, as if thinking of something he wanted to add, but wasn’t sure whether he really should. Finally, he said, “Tell him that I hope he is.”

“I’ll tell him.”

Plomondon seemed satisfied that I would and nodded at me in a friendly fashion before he turned and headed for the door and out into the world where there were now enough stuffed-up toilets so that he no longer had to eat at the White Tower.

I walked slowly back to the office and sat behind the partners’ desk for a while. After a few minutes I took down a two-year-old copy’ of the World Almanac and looked up Llaquah. The Almanac said that Llaquah was under British protection until it became independent in 1959, that it had nearly a third of the free world’s estimated oil reserves, that it was an absolute monarchy, that it was destined to become one of the richest nations in the world, at least on a per capita basis, and that it had a standing army of 2,000.

I put the World Almanac back on the shelf and sat there at the desk, admiring my view of the alley. I looked at my watch and saw that it was nearly three. I continued to sit there, thinking of Llaquah and speculating about how its citizens were going to spend all that oil money. I also wondered who had used the garrote on Walter Gothar and why they’d chosen my apartment, and pondered the capricious fate that had turned me into a saloonkeeper, and then tried to figure out what income tax bracket we would be elevated into if Fredl got the raise that she intended to demand, and finally wondered how badly Padillo really needed Plomondon the Plumber who thought he was no longer good enough to cope with the likes of Amos Gitner. I thought about that last for quite a while and when I looked at my watch again it was nearly four.

I got up and went over to one of the three filing cabinets and opened a drawer that was labeled Miscellaneous. It contained a small transistor radio whose batteries had gone dead, a pair of binoculars that some customer had left and never returned for, an emergency bottle of Scotch which Padillo had described as ridiculous, and a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver with a one-inch barrel which I took out and dropped into an attaché case that contained two shirts, two pairs of shorts, some socks, a tie that I’d never really liked, and some toilet articles. I snapped the attaché case shut and used the phone to ask Herr Horst whether he could see me for a moment.

When he came into the office I said in German, “I am joining Herr Padillo in New York for a few days.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Take care of things.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Check out the new pastry chef.”

“With great care.”

“Do we have five hundred in the till?”

“I believe so.”

“Get it for me and I’ll fill out a cash voucher.”

When Herr Horst returned with the money I handed him the voucher. He politely followed me through the restaurant and to the front door which he held open. He bowed slightly and said, “Have a good journey, Herr McCorkle.” I looked at him, but there was nothing in his manner or on his face but polite, frozen reserve. If I’d told him that I wanted to burn the place down, he would have handed me the matches.

I thanked him and went out into the street and flagged a cab, cheering the driver a little when I told him that I wanted to go to National Airport.

As doughty McCorkle went rushing to the rescue down Seventeenth Street in his hired hack he remembered that he’d forgotten something. He’d forgotten to pack the bullets. That made him feel a bit foolish all the way out to the airport, but it was a feeling that seemed in perfect harmony with the rest of what he’d done that day.